Comprehensive Current affairs 14 July 2020

"Persons with Disabities entitled to same benefits as SC/ST’s". SC.

Indian Supreme Court, in a significant decision, confirmed that persons with disabilities are also socially backward and entitled to the same benefits of relaxation as Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates in public employment and education.

A three-judge Bench led by Justice RohintonNariman upheld a 2012 judgment of the Delhi High Court in AnamolBhandari (minor) through his father/Natural Guardian v. Delhi Technological University.
“In AnamolBhandari, the High Court has correctly held that people suffering from disabilities are also socially backward, and are therefore, at the very least, entitled to the same benefits as given to the Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe candidates,” the Supreme Court held in a judgment on July 8. 

Access centralised online database.

The National Intelligence Grid has signed anMoU with the National Crime Records Bureau to access the centralised online database on FIRs and stolen vehicles.

First conceptualised in 2009, NATGRID seeks to become the one-stop destination for security and intelligence agencies to access database related to immigration entry and exit, banking and telephone details of a suspect on a “secured platform”. The project aims to go live by December 31.

The MoU, signed in March, will give NATGRID access to the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems database, a platform that links around 14,000 police stations.

Indian Govt. invites suggestions for safety evaluation of hydrogen powered vehicles.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has notified a draft notification proposing amendment to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 for inclusion of the standards for the safety evaluation of the vehicles being propelled through hydrogen fuel cells.

It is proposed to include motor vehicles of Categories M and N, running on compressed gaseous hydrogen fuel cell, to be in accordance with AIS 157:2020, as amended from time to time, till the corresponding BIS specification is notified under the Bureau of Indian Standard Act, 2016.

Further, the hydrogen fuel specifications for fuel cell vehicles shall be in accordance with ISO 14687 till the corresponding BIS specification is notified under the Bureau of Indian Standard Act, 2016.

 

U.S remains India’s top trading partner in last fiscal.

The US remained India's top trading partner for the second consecutive fiscal in 2019-20, which shows increasing economic ties between the two countries. According to the data of the commerce ministry, in 2019-20, the bilateral trade between the US and India stood at USD 88.75 billion as against USD 87.96 billion in 2018-19.

The US is one of the few countries with which India has a trade surplus. The trade gap between the countries has increased to USD 17.42 billion in 2019-20 from USD 16.86 billion in 2018-19, the data showed.

The bilateral trade between India and China has dipped to USD 81.87 billion in 2019-20 from USD 87.08 billion in 2018-19. Trade deficit between the two neighbours have declined to USD 48.66 billion in 2019-20 from USD 53.57 billion in the previous fiscal. 

The data also showed that China was India's top trading partner since 2013-14 till 2017-18. Before China, UAE was the country's largest trading nation.

India rescues Srilankan fishermen from EEZ.

Indian Coast Guard (ICG) rescued six Sri Lankan fishermen from Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in Andaman Sea. During the EEZ surveillance of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the ICG Dornier located a boat adrift at approximately 190 Nautical Miles North-West of Port Blair.
The boat has been identified as Sri Lankan and was reportedly in distress due to technical snag.
Acting over the situation, a rescue mission was launched from Port Blair. ICG Ship RAJKAMAL rescued the six Sri Lankan fishermen along with the boat on the early morning of 11th July.

U.S remains India’s top trading partner in last fiscal.

The US remained India's top trading partner for the second consecutive fiscal in 2019-20, which shows increasing economic ties between the two countries. According to the data of the commerce ministry, in 2019-20, the bilateral trade between the US and India stood at USD 88.75 billion as against USD 87.96 billion in 2018-19.

The US is one of the few countries with which India has a trade surplus. The trade gap between the countries has increased to USD 17.42 billion in 2019-20 from USD 16.86 billion in 2018-19, the data showed.

The bilateral trade between India and China has dipped to USD 81.87 billion in 2019-20 from USD 87.08 billion in 2018-19. Trade deficit between the two neighbours have declined to USD 48.66 billion in 2019-20 from USD 53.57 billion in the previous fiscal.
The data also showed that China was India's top trading partner since 2013-14 till 2017-18. Before China, UAE was the country's largest trading nation.

India recorded 1.2million snakebites in 20 years.

India recorded a staggering 1.2 million snakebite deaths in the 20-year period from 2000 to 2019 with an average of 58,000 deaths caused by snakebite annually. Around 70% of these deaths occurred in low altitude, rural areas of eight States — Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

The study, conducted by the Centre for Global Health Research (CGHR) at the University of Toronto, Canada, with Indian and U.K. partners, also points out that half of all the snakebite deaths occurred during the monsoon period from June to September. The study said that snakebite deaths occurred mostly in rural areas (97%), were more common in males (59%) than females (41%), and peaked in the age group of 15-29 years (25%).

In the largest ever such survey published in 2011 and titled ‘Snakebite Mortality in India: A Nationally Representative Mortality Survey’, researchers of the Million Death Study project estimated 46,000 annual snakebite deaths in India. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognises snakebite as a top-priority neglected tropical disease.

Rare snake species spotted in Assam after 129 years.

The Assam keelback snake has been sighted by a team from the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, for the first time since 1869. This snake was spotted in 2018 by zoologist Abhijit Das when he, along with a team, was retracing the Abor expedition – an iconic expedition that took place from 1911-1912 that had yielded a rich list of flora and fauna of the Assam region.

First known as Hebiuspealii this snake was named after Edward Peal, a British tea planter who first collected two specimens of this snake from upper Assam, 129 years ago. Of the two collected specimens, one was preserved in the Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, and the other was kept in the Natural History Museum in London.

The Assam keelback is so far known only to inhabit Sivasagar in Upper Assam and Poba in Assam-Arunachal border. So, as far as present knowledge goes, it is an endemic snake of Upper Assam.

India claims railways to achieve 100% electrification by 2030.

Indian Railway Minister has said that Indian Railways will be the largest Railway in the world to have 100 per cent electrification replacing diesel. He expressed hope that it will be the world's first Green Railways running on 100 per cent clean energy by 2030.

Addressing the India Global Week-2020, he said, the government has opened up for bidding for additional 151 trains inviting private participation so the passengers can enjoy world-class facilities and high speed journeys.

Mr Goyal said, India is looking to reform in terms of domestic approvals and bureaucratic process to simplify things and it will soon be coming up with a New Industrial Policy for economic growth.

Economic experts moot prioritization of health care spending.

The government can turn the COVID-19 crisis into an opportunity by investing in healthcare, and it should also pursue making all the cities slum-free by 2023, economists observed.
At the seventh economic conclave organised by State Bank of India on Saturday, there was unanimity among the economists on laying greater thrust on decentralisation in policy making in the future, as a one size fits all approach may not work always.

India at present has the third highest number of COVID-19 cases, after the U.S. and Brazil, and has already lost over 22,000 people.

 

Agriculture has emerged as the bright spot in a gloomy economy.

Context:
GDP growth this fiscal, agriculture seems to have emerged as a silver lining.

If agriculture growth, at 4 per cent for 2019-20 matched that of the economy, it may well exceed GDP growth this fiscal. Its share in GDP too may rise by a couple of percentage points.

In 2018-19 agriculture has invariably lagged the rest of the economy, growing at about 2-2.5 per cent while the rest of the economy was in the 6-8 per cent growth range.

Agriculture will work as the primary driver of demand:

Other drivers such as trade, transport and communications have been badly hit by the pandemic; their growth levels, at 2.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2019-20 when effects of the lockdown had barely come into effect, could take some time to return to trend levels of 7-8 per cent.

The same holds true for finance and real estate. In this scenario of vulnerability, a normal monsoon has come as a saviour.

Kharif acreages are up 44 per cent at 580 lakh hectares over last year, led by a sharp increase in cultivation of pulses, oilseeds and cereals.

Tractor sales went up by 52 per cent in June, while fertiliser offtake is reported to have doubled over last year.

An increase in demand for cement too points to rural optimism. FMCG majors catering to rural markets are reporting high capacity utilisation.

Policy steps to show positive effects:

Open ended wheat procurement of about 38 million tonnes so far, the highest in recent years, provided farmers particularly in Punjab and Haryana with cash to prepare for the next crop.
As for the other States, cash transfers under PM Kisan as well as the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana, besides higher MGNREGA wages and outlays, may have helped in preparing for the kharif crop as well as managing the return of migrants.

The fact that 63 lakh SHGs can access collateral-free loans up to ₹20 lakh, against ₹10 lakh earlier, can make a difference to the lives of millions of women and their households.
In this ambience, it will not be surprising if some of the migrants prefer to stay back and use their urban skills to good effect in the rural economy.

Way forward:

However, these are yet early days. There is the possibility of depressed prices nullifying output gains.

The Centre and States should prepare for rolling out price support schemes and improving the working of its crop insurance programme in situations of crop loss, possibly due to locusts.
If rural India is to be the engine of the economy, it follows that the economic impact of rural distress will be widely and deeply felt.